They're Gone
by whitchry9
Summary: Written for the H/C bingo prompt: wild card (loss of voice). Sherlock loses his words. John doesn't know what he's supposed to do to help find them. I may continue this. Let me know if you'd like me to.
1. Chapter 1

John, come home now. -SH

If inconvenient, come anyway. -SH

Please? -SH

It had been a long day at the surgery. John was tired of patients who thought they knew everything, simply because they had looked it up online. They did not have a medical degree. They had not seen death and dying and pointless suffering.

John had. He often wished he hadn't. But some days, some days made everything worth it. However, today was not one of those days. John just wanted to get home, make a cuppa, yell at Sherlock who had been texting him all afternoon, begging him to come home, and sit on the couch to watch some crap telly.

Of course, when one lives with Sherlock, one never really seems to get what they want.

John arrived home to find Sherlock on the couch, still in the clothes he was wearing that morning when he left, curled up in a fetal position with his back facing John.

"I see you did a lot today." There was no reply from the bump on the couch. "Well? What was it you kept texting me about?"

Still no response. John did not have the patience for this. He threw his bag down on the floor and stomped off to the kitchen to make tea, rather unquietly.

His mobile in his pocket vibrated. He took it out and frowned, glancing at the tiny screen.

"Really Sherlock? I'm right here. There's no need to text me." He sighed and opened the message.

Words. -SH

Also, yes there is. -SH

John rubbed his face with his hands. It had been too long of a day for this.

"I don't... understand, Sherlock. What are you saying?"

I kept texting you about words. They're gone. Help. -SH

When John had finished comprehending this, he stared at the couch where Sherlock was lying. With a huff, he dramatically rolled himself over to face John. His mobile was clutched in his hands like a lifeline. He looked at John pointedly, with a look that clearly said _you're an idiot. _

"Well," he began awkwardly, "what do you want me to do about it?"

You are a doctor, remember? -SH

"Yeah, well they never taught us about missing words in med school!"

Sherlock began typing furiously.

John sighed, and resumed making his cup of tea. It was going to be a long night.

Occasionally, all my words get lost. They're still there, but I don't have access to them. It doesn't happen very often, maybe once every few years, but it varies how long it lasts for. Once I couldn't find them for two months. -SH

As you can imagine, Mummy was rather worried at that. She took me to multiple doctors and child psychiatrists. Of course, being idiots, they came up with nothing. My words do come back though. -SH

John reread the message, wondering if he was missing something.

I have a theory, of course. -SH

Sherlock just sat there, typing away, smirking. John wanted to slap him.

"So, you know why this happens, so why the hell haven't you told me yet?!"

Sherlock looked up innocently, then resumed his frantic typing.

I'm bored. I want you to figure it out. -SH

_Dear god, _thought John. There was not enough tea in the world for this.

"Er... right. Well. It's not something physical, because one of the doctors would have figured that out. It's not that you're choosing not to speak, because how else can you make the rest of the population feel like idiots. Texting takes too long," he pointed out as Sherlock had started to type something out. He stopped after John said that. "It's not something psychological, because you would never admit there is something wrong with you psychologically. So it has to be neurological."

He looked up at Sherlock expectantly.

Sherlock made no motion that he heard John, just sat there staring out the window, mobile still in his hands. He tapped something out rapidly, then threw his mobile onto the couch, moving to the window in one sweeping movement, violin in his hands out of nowhere.

John opened the latest message as Sherlock began to play a tune he vaguely recognized.

Good. Continue. -SH

John only stared at it as the haunting notes continued to flow.

He recognized the tune now. Chopin's nocturne in c sharp minor. Haunting. Broken. He rarely played it.

John was concerned now.


	2. Chapter 2

It was three hours later. Sherlock still had no words and John hadn't figured it out. He didn't think he could take this for two days let alone two months. His phone kept vibrating insistently and he wanted to smash it. He didn't, because that would only make it worse.

John was doing research. Sherlock was playing his violin, occasionally pausing to text John something that he didn't read. Finally, after he ignored about a dozen messages, Sherlock stomped over to John and stood above him menacingly.

John scowled, but knew he couldn't attempt to ignore him.

"Fine, fine," he muttered. "I'll read them. Just... back off okay?" he snapped.

Sherlock returned to his position at the window, still playing the same haunting tune.

How's the research going? -SH

Found anything yet? -SH

And by anything, I mean something not entirely idiotic. -SH

You're looking in the wrong places. -SH

Try a new way of thinking. -SH

Bored. -SH

Bored. -SH

Bored! -SH

John, stop ignoring me. -SH

Bored. -SH

You're such a child. -SH

If you don't respond within 5 minutes, I will go begin a new experiment that involves fire. Lots of fire. -SH

John rolled his eyes, and answered the texts in order.

"Fine, yes, then no, really, leave me alone, deal with it times three, I'm not, really?, I'm not the child here, and no."

He returned to his scrolling, clicking, and occasional typing.

Sherlock perched like cat on his chair, staring at John. It was rather unnerving. John suspected that, like a cat, Sherlock would prefer to be sitting on John or at least on his laptop, right in the middle of the action.

_Not going to happen, _John thought to himself.

Sherlock glared at him.

"Thinking too loudly for you?" He asked cheerfully, not bothering to wait for a response.

John continued to ignore him and Sherlock eventually wandered off, hopefully to do something non-destructive.

Exasperated with the decided lack of medical information about 'lost words', John soon gave up and instead began pecking out a blog post, thinking that perhaps one of their readers might be slightly more helpful.

From the blog of John H. Watson

Sherlock has reached a new level of 'difficult to deal with', either refusing to speak or being incapable; I'm not entirely sure still. So my phone has been inundated with random texts from him, detailing things such as threats to experiment if I don't entertain him. He even went so far as to accuse me of acting like a child. Honestly.

He claims it's a medical reason that he can't access his words, and I've narrowed it down to being something neurological rather than physical or psychological. However, I can't seem to find any literature on the subject. Not surprisingly.

Any of our readers have any input?

Comment by undercoverumbrella: Ah, about time it happened again. Do enjoy it.

Reply by John: What part of this is enjoyable?

Reply by undercoverumbrella: The silence of course.

Reply by John: No, there is no silence because he keeps texting me and playing his bloody violin!

Comment by DIGreg: Have you tried taking his phone away? Might force him to talk.

Reply by John: Thought of that. Pretty sure he'd just do morse code or sign language or flag signal or something else I'd have no idea how to decipher.

Comment by number1fan: Are you sure it's not elective mutism? As a game perhaps?

Reply by John: No, because then he would have stopped instead of having to send me 6 consecutive texts explaining why the person walking down the street was a... Anyway, yes, I'm sure.

Comment by theadmirerer: Love. Obviously.

Reply by John: We're not together.

Reply by Sherlock: No. Why does everyone assume that everything has to do with emotions?

John sighed, rubbing his face with his hands. It was now six hours in and no sign of stopping. He was exhausted, and rightly so, as it was well after midnight.

"I'm going to bed Sherlock. You should get some sleep."

There was no response from the lump on the couch.

John climbed up the stairs to his room, phone in tow despite his best judgements to leave it downstairs.


	3. Chapter 3

The noise infiltrated his dreams. Someone, and John knew exactly which someone this was, had changed his text alert from vibration to... well, John wasn't entirely sure what it was. Perhaps a penguin mating call or something?

John knew it wouldn't stop. Sure, he could turn his phone off, but that would just mean Sherlock would come up here, likely with his violin, and insist John come and see or do what he wanted. And he'd do it all in a way John would have no hope of understanding.

John. -SH

John. -SH

John. -SH

What. -JW

Come here. -SH

Any further chances of sleep had been ruined. John glanced at his clock. At least Sherlock had waited until after 8. He had done this before, many times actually, but the most memorable took place at 4:30am, and John had made it very clear that it was _never _to happen again unless it was life and death. (Which it had been only once.)

He traipsed down the stairs to find Sherlock fully dressed, perched in his chair, typing madly on his phone.

"What do you want? And, what the _hell _was that? A penguin mating call or something?"

"A hedgehog mating call. Not a bad guess, at least for you I suppose."

"So what, you're just..." John gestured widely at him.

"Hmm?" He raised an eyebrow as he peered at John with his peripheral vision, not even taking his glance off his phone. "Oh yes."

"Feel like explaining now?"

"No."

"Let me rephrase that. Explain to me why you just stopped talking for a day and then all of a sudden restarted."

Sherlock sighed dramatically, and finished whatever it was he was doing before setting his phone down and looking up at John, standing there rather impatiently.

"I'm not telling you outright. I'll give you more clues though."

John huffed and flopped in his chair.

"None of your readers were particularly helpful. Or even correct. And your search history reveals that you got close, but apparently thought it was unimportant and did not look into it further."

"Hang on, what?"

"You got close. You were even on a page that mentioned it. And typically, you saw but did not observe."

John rubbed his face again.

"I'm going to need tea before I can think about this," he grumbled, pushing himself up and out of the chair.

He puttered around the kitchen and Sherlock returned to his phone.

When his tea was made, John returned to his chair.

"Didn't make me any?"

John eyed Sherlock.

"No, but the kettle has boiled if you want to make it yourself."

Sherlock grumbled.

"I'll take that as a no," John replied, booting up his laptop.

He stared at the screen open mouthed.

"Sherlock, you deleted my browsing history."

"Mmm..."

"That's it," he declared, shoving his laptop away roughly. "I give up."

Sitting up now, Sherlock turned to look at John. "Really?"

"Yes, Sherlock. I do."

"How disappointing."

"Well, you could just tell me."

Silence.

"That's what I thought," John replied, shifting his attention to the newspaper.

It had been silent in 221b for a while, until John spoke up again.

"Why a hedgehog mating call?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

"Nope."

"Oh. Well, I'm not explaining that one." Sherlock Holmes said, picking up his violin once again. "You'll have to figure it out for yourself." And tucking the instrument under his chin, he struck up a lively, happy, perhaps even mocking tune, leaving John Watson the one at a loss for words.


End file.
